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* * *

Tom woke up with Kyrie shrieking, and saw Not Dinner rush towards her and the open door. "Kyrie," he said. "Not Dinner."

Kyrie bent down just in time to stop the tiny animated projectile attempting to run out the door, and grab him in her hand, even as she scooped up the paper with her other hand. She closed the door with her foot and returned to Tom. "Look at this," she said, and turned the paper towards him so that he could read the above-the-fold headline.

The Weekly Inquirer—which was a daily paper, a dissonance of nomenclature that bothered no one in Goldport—normally printed city news first page, relegating the national and international news to the middle sections where—it was felt in town—the rest of the world belonged, being far less important than their concerns.

Local news normally consisted of some business moving to town, some business moving out; an event of importance in the life of the mayor; some trial for fraud or embezzlement; a parade; or what Tom referred to as "pretty puppy" news. Today Tom would have expected the big headline to be about the snowstorm. And it was. At least the headline just beneath the title of the paper, in dark blue letters, was "Goldport Slammed by Storm." But above the fold, and in screaming red letters just beneath the newspaper's name was "Strange Animals Seen Around Town." And beneath that "Dragons and Saber-Toothed Tigers and Smoking Squirrels."

"Smoking squirrels?" he said, looking up at Kyrie, whose hand was shaking so much that the newspaper was oscillating before his eyes.

"Whatever. But dragons? Saber-tooth?"

"It wasn't a saber-tooth," Tom said, reasonably. "It was a dire wolf."

"Oh, yes, and I'm sure that the international spotters of extinct animals would care," she said, as she set the kitten on top of him and started reading from the paper. "Last night, amid the howling gusts of the storm—who writes this paper? The Bronte sisters?—a man passing by a building near the aquarium swears he saw in the parking lot a dragon or some other large creature battling it out with what he swears was a saber-toothed tiger. With great presence of mind he snapped a photo with his cell phone." Kyrie stretched the paper towards Tom so he could see an indistinct picture of dark shapes amid white snow. "He took a picture of us." Kyrie said.

If Tom squinted and sort of looked at it sideways, the dark blobs in the snow did look like Kyrie, the dire wolf and himself. In shifted forms. Or perhaps like three sacks of potatoes. "Kyrie, it's completely fuzzy. No one could recognize a dragon in that."

"No, but . . . if it hadn't been snowing, someone could have gotten a real picture of you and me and the dire wolf."

"All right. I will do my best not to get in fights with homicidal maniacs," he said, and sat up. "At least not when people might get a clear picture of me. Do you have any idea how I should sell this truce to the homicidal maniacs?"

But Kyrie only looked at him with a blank and panicked look. "But they know. Someone knows."

"Kyrie!" Tom said. "How many times do people read this sort of thing, or think they see it, or report it? It doesn't make any difference. Black panthers up in Ohio, I remember reports of that—"

"Yeah, a lot of them when I lived there."

"Oh, really?" he smiled briefly. "Well, I was on the cover of the Inquirer once. I mean, the real one, the tabloid. Someone got me, flying over town, with a telephoto lens. No one believed it of course. Not after half the tabloids spent the nineties reporting on the president's alien baby." He put his hand out to her, and held her wrist. "No one will believe it, Kyrie. That picture doesn't look any better than the countless pictures of the abominable snowman. And if it did, people would say it was Photoshopped. Calm down will you? Everything is fine. And look, about the cat, if you don't want it—"

"No, I always wanted a cat and he seems very nice . . . in an insufferable male feline way."

"I don't know if he's a male, I just—"

"Oh, he's a male, trust me. I just know." She grinned, and tossed the newspaper down. "Right, I must go and find him a litter box."

By the time she came back, carrying a small plastic box filled with grey granules, Tom was reading the paper, frowning, very puzzled over reports that a giant squirrel—the size of a German shepherd—had been seen in various locations downtown "wearing a beret and smoking cigarettes," he told Kyrie. "I mean, and you're afraid people will believe the thing about the dragon when they finish with this."

Kyrie looked confused. "Are you sure it's not someone like us? I mean . . . a shifter squirrel?"

"The size of a German shepherd and wearing a beret? What are the chances?"

"Not high," Kyrie said. "But if it's true . . ."

"If it's true," Tom said, feeling as though he had a bit of ice wedged in his stomach, "then he's gone completely around the bend. Which I suppose would make him an ideal suspect for the aquarium murder."

"And perhaps for whoever unleashed the executioner on us," Kyrie said.

At that moment, the phone rang. And Kyrie sprang towards it. "It's Rafiel," she said.

 

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Framed